Running With a SEAL

If you don't want to discover your pain threshold, don't run with a Navy SEAL.

I will be accused of exaggerating, but I assure you I'm not. Except for the part about underwater snakes snapping at our calves, everything that follows happened exactly as described without any embellishment.

I was holding a beer in one hand and fried chicken in the other. This was a summer family reunion. I was standing in front of my niece's husband, who is a Navy SEAL. Navy SEALs don't like to be written about, so let's call him Bronco. Bronco is a muscle—a ripped, blond-haired, blue-eyed dazzler who looks as though he could incapacitate a man with a strategic finger thrust. As if that weren't enough, he is easily one of the smartest guys in any given room.

"I heard you went for a run yesterday," I said to Bronco. I took a bite of chicken and nodded. What I'd actually heard is that he had run mile repeats pushing a car, did a five-mile cooldown jog wearing a 100-pound pack, and finished off with an hour of sustained kickboxing. "I've been running a little myself," I continued. I took a sip of the beer. His eyes narrowed and grew serious. "So, you know, I'd love to join you at the end of one of your workouts if you'd let me tag along." He shifted to face me and lowered his head.

"What are your goals?" he said.

I made a squawk of some sort and began to stammer. If you're suddenly asked what your goals are by someone who is not joking—whose eyes are pinned to yours, who is a Navy SEAL—you're abruptly thrust into a lightning-round assessment of your entire life that leaves you giggling in a high, unattractive way. "My goals?" I said. I looked at my beer and chicken and thought about how I'd like to lose weight. That would sound stupid even if my hands were empty. No self-respecting guy tells a Navy SEAL he'd like to fit into smaller jeans. I struggled to say something. I could tell him I'd like to try to be mighty. I would like to be a little more epic, every now and then.

"Okay," I said, finally, "in the fall, I was thinking—and this is only if I can get there because I have a long way to go—I was thinking in late fall, literally months from now, I might try and you know. . . complete a half-marathon."

"Let's do that tomorrow, then," he said. I stared back at him as the walls around us began to slant and close in. I wondered how I had let this happen. I covered my mouth with my wrist and swallowed a beer-burp. The lesson, I guess, is that unless you're special in some way, you probably shouldn't poke a stick at a guy who pushes cars around for workouts. "I won't let you fail," he said.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"And think of how strong you'll be," he said, cutting me off. "How easy all other running will be if you follow me to the brink of your pain threshold and let me walk you back out." The more he talked, the worse I felt, the wider I smiled, the more I nodded. I'm stupid that way.

Oh, thank you, I thought. "We are!" I said. He won't kill me in front of my son. "Would you like to join us?" He said yes, and Bronc's wife and another niece and nephew also asked to come along.

Nine o'clock the next morning, the five of us were standing on the road talking and stretching as if nothing unusual was about to happen. Bronco came up wearing low, canvas boots and black shorts with no shirt. "What's this?" he said, pointing to my running watch. "Don't turn it on and don't look at it. Let me take care of this, all right?" I said sure. "We'll start slow," he said and turned his black cap backward and motioned us forward. My wife snapped pictures before peeling off. We weren't going slow

"Does anyone think we're going slow right now?" I shouted. I bit back small waves of panic. The others were all young and extremely fit. If this was slow, I didn't want to see what came next.

Suddenly, Bronco jumped just ahead and while running backward did a quick examination of me. "Turn your thumbs up and out," he said. "Open your chest, control the air." Still running backward, he swerved in front of Casey. "Don't cross your arms in front of your body," he told him. "You're robbing your own strength. And Joey, dude," swinging in front of my nephew, "straighten up, or you'll never make it. Smaller strides, chin down."

He flipped back around and fell in beside me as we began a long, slow hill. He pointed to a stop sign a quarter mile away and told Casey and Joey to sprint for it. "I'm gonna get them breathing as hard as you are," he said with a smile and then screamed ahead, "Who wants it more?" As they thundered off, he told me to reach out and grab the air in each fist and throw it behind me. "That's how you do a hill like this," he said. "Watch." He took off toward Joey and Casey who were far ahead, and somehow beat them both to the sign. It was incredible. I'll tell you who wants it more. Navy SEALs do.

The three of them circled back to pick me up, and a mile or so later, we all began a long downhill. "Open your stride," Bronco yelled to me. "Don't stop the wheels!" He ordered Casey and Joey to do another sprint, and they bolted ahead, which was a low point for me. I was already sprinting. As we ran through intervals of speed and recovery, I began to shout obscenities. I started calling him sir.

"I think I'm at the brink of my pain threshold now, sir," I said, falling into a desperate Bill Murray voice. "It's been a humbling and rewarding experience. I'd like to go home now."

"We're not even halfway!" he said.

We fired down a narrow path through a thicket that opened into a wide, empty lakeside beach. Sand. Of course. A SEAL will always find sand. I blasted through the soft mounds on dead legs as if in a dream—the one where you're running and going nowhere. Bronco stayed at my side as his wife pulled out her inner beast and raced ahead. "Let's go!" Bronc said and turned us into knee-deep water, where we crashed through a wave of underwater snakes that snapped wildly at our calves. "Let them snap!" I screamed. Casey looked tired, which meant I looked like a staggering zombie without a thought in its black, mushy brain. "This is it!" Bronc cheered into my ear. "You ran long and hard to feel this pain—embrace it, let it go through you. This pain is your reward!"

That I'm able to write this gives away the end: I survived. And I learned that you can run with a SEAL, but only if he lets you. I learned that pain is painful and one epic, mighty run does not an epic, mighty man make. I learned that SEALs are better.

As we wallowed in the cold, shallow water, Bronco removed a shoe and examined a deep tear in the pad of his foot that he'd sustained from kickboxing. "At any time, during any of this," I asked him, "did you get even the least bit tired?" He squinted at me and smiled. His wife laughed and touched my shoulder.

"You did a really great job, Marc," she said. "Don't even ask him that."